Saturday, June 20, 2015

The Counter-Encyclical

Against
the Errors of Environmentalism

Brother
Alexis Bugnolo, one of the world's foremost experts on St. Francis of
Assisi and Franciscanism, and editor of the Franciscan Archive,
presents a counter-encyclical to the Laudato Si' of Pope Francis.

Ostensibly
written by a future Pope, its full title is “On the Honor and Glory
Due to the Divine Majesty of the Most Holy Trinity – Against the
Errors of Environmentalism. It “affirms and declares” that the
totality of Laudato Si' and all its parts are to be considered merely
as the personal
doctrine of Jorge
Mario Bergoglio, and not of the Apostolic See of St. Peter.

Some
highlights of the counter-encyclical

“We
consider it necessary to remove a grave scandal which has shaken the
whole world: namely, that which emanated from the once unsullied
throne of this Apostolic See. I speak of the encyclical letter,
Laudato Si' of my predecessor, Francis, of infelicitous memory . . .
promoting in an official papal document, into which he mixed many
half-truths, the falsehood of environmentalism unto the deception of
the entire Catholic world.”

The
counter-encyclical enumerates many reasons to attest that “it is not
man who is the lord and master of creation, but God; that it is not
man who is first and foremost responsible for the heavens and the
earth and all these contain, but God. . . For this reason it is
theologically an effrontery to God to say or concede that the
environment of this planet earth depends upon mankind.”

“To
say or imply, therefore, that man's activities in general make this
world ugly or pollute it is false, erroneous and implicitly
heretical, inasmuch as it impugns the Divine Goodness, Providence and
Wisdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

“This
sinful obsession with earthly things is, as the glorious Doctor of
the Church, the Seraphic Saint Bonaventure frequently notes, the
necessary consequent of a human spirit bent down to face earthly
things by the weight of his own sins and vices and concupiscences.”

“We
recognize and declare, that since God at the beginning had both made
all things and declared them together with man, 'very good' (Genesis
1:30 and throughout), that it is a mortal sin of blasphemy to call
them or their use evil, and thus, likewise a grave error and sin, to
say that their non-use or discarding, is of itself, or according to
its genus a sin.”

Brother
Alexis Bugnolo links to this work Here
and Here.
A printable version of the text is made available by this blog,
Here